INDIANS OF YOSEMITE

By A. L. Kroeber

Professor of Anthropology and Curator of the Anthropological
Museum, University of California

The
Indians of Yosemite belong to a group or family
known as the Miwok who, before the white man came,
owned the tract from the Cosumnes River on the north
to the Fresno on the south, and from the crest of the
Sierra Nevada to the edge of the San Joaquin Valley.
The name Miwok is not strictly a tribal appellation; it
is simply the word in the language of these Indians
which means "people." In default of any specific
designation for them, this term Miwok has been
applied in distinction from other groups of aborigines.
Of such groups, there may be mentioned as neighbors:
the Maidu to the north in the Sierra; the Yokuts to the
south in the foothills and to the southwest in the San
Joaquin Valley; and the Mono to the south in the high
Sierra, and to the east in Owens Valley and about
Mono Lake. Excepting the Mono (who are an offshoot
from the Paiutes and other Shoshoneans of
Nevada and the Great Basin country) the other
groups of Indians adjacent to the Miwok are very
similar to them in physical type and customs, and even
show a probable, although distant, relationship to
them in speech. In short, the Miwok are typical and
representative California Indians, and in this capacity
form part of the large body of tribes known as "Diggers."
This is, however, a misleading name; partly
because it carries a tinge of contempt, and still more
because it lumps together a variety of nationalities
that sometimes differed pretty thoroughly in their
speech or were even unaware of one another’s existence.
For this reason the more accurate terms Miwok,
Maidu, and Yokuts are preferable.

ORIGIN

The origin of these Sierra Nevada tribes is not
definitely known. There can, however, be no serious
doubt that they form part of the generic American
Indian race and that their ultimate origin must be
sought wherever the source of this division of mankind
may have lain. While no one is yet in a position to
speak dogmatically on this matter, all indications
point to the Indians having come at some time in the
far past from Asia, probably by the Bering Strait and
Alaska route. It is clear that in his bodily type the
Indian more nearly resembles the Mongolian of Eastern
Asia than any other variety of the human species.
The long, straight, stiff hair, one of the most valuable
marks in race classification, is alone sufficient to establish
a strong presumption in this direction. As to
when this migration of the first inhabitants of America
out of Asia took place, there is growing up a fairly
unanimous concensus among anthropologists that this
movement must have occurred at about the time that
the Old Stone Age was giving place to the New in
Europe; that is to say, in the period at which chipped
stone tools were being replaced by polished ones, and
the ax, bow and arrow, textiles, agricultural implements,
and domestic animals were becoming part of
the heritage of the species. These steps in advance
are believed to have occurred about ten thousand
years ago. We may therefore say roughly that somewhere
about 8000 B.C.—with an allowance of a few
thousand years either way as a margin for error—the
American Indian became established on this continent
and began his diffusion.

California was probably not very long in being
reached; a mode of life adapted to local conditions
was worked out, and with this the natives were
apparently content, and their development progressed
only slowly. They have left some traces of their
occupancy in ancient village sites, shell mounds, and
the like. Here the less perishable of their utensils,
such as mortars, pestles, pipes, knives, arrow points,
awls, beads, and other objects of stone, bone, and so
forth, have been preserved. In one of the most
favorable localities on the shores of San Francisco
Bay careful computations have been made as to the
age of these deposits, with the result that the lower
levels of the shell mounds there have been estimated
to date back at least 3000 years. The implements at
these lower levels are ruder than those found near the
tops of the mounds; but they are after all of the same
type and even rather similar to those used by the
modern Indians of the State, including the Miwok.
We are therefore justified in assuming that native
customs evolved very slowly in California, and that
the ancestors of the Miwok and of the Yosemite
Indians for a very long time past have lived very
much in the manner and under the conditions in
which they were discovered by the whites seventy
years ago.

DECREASE OF NUMBERS

The Miwok probably numbered at least ten
thousand, but the population decreased with terrifying
rapidity after the advent of the white man. Some
of the nearer groups of them were taken to the Franciscan
Missions on the coast and there died off or became
mixed with other tribes. The miner and rancher
quickly overran the Miwok habitat after 1849. The
Indian was crowded into the less desirable nooks; his
native food supply was preëmpted; whiskey and new
diseases against which he had no immunity were
introduced and resulted in a startling mortality; and
the general change in mode of life—new types of
habitations, clothing, diet, labor, etc.—accentuated
the effect of these diseases. The consequence was
that in the sixty years between their first serious contact
with the white man until the census of 1910, the
Miwok lost more than ninety percent. of their numbers.
This census, which may not be wholly complete but
was by far the most accurate ever made as regards
Indians, enumerates only about seven hundred of
them, and of these a fair proportion are mixed bloods.
The number is still shrinking, but fortunately with less
rapidity than formerly. The Indian has begun to
adapt himself to civilized life, and has acquired some
resistance to our diseases. The Miwok therefore bid
fair to maintain themselves as a diminishing remnant
for some time longer, and quite likely even a small
fraction of them may survive permanently.

The Miwok were not divided into tribes in the usual
sense of the word. They recognized very little political
authority. They were broken up into small local
groups, little larger than village communities, each of
which admitted the headship of some chief and allowed
im a rather poorly defined amount of influence on
their conduct. These numerous little bodies named
each other, generally, after the localities which they
inhabited. Thus the Yosemite Indians as a body
were ordinarily known to the other Miwok as the
Awanichi, after Awani, the largest or best known
village site in the Valley, located not far from the foot
of Yosemite Falls. In the same way a group south of
Yosemite was called the Pohonichi, because in summer
they ranged northward to the Valley in the region of
Bridalveil Creek, the famous falls of which are known
as Pohono.

FOOD: THE ACORN

The Yosemite Indians were in the hunting stage;
that is, they never farmed nor raised domestic animals.
Actually, however, only a small part of their diet came
from game. They probably took as many pounds of
fish each year as of animal flesh, and a still larger
portion of their food was wild vegetable products.
Among these the acorn was preëminent, and even
to-day the caches or bins for the storage of these
nutritious nuts can occasionally be seen in the Valley.
These are rude affairs, eight or ten feet in height, constructed
of brush much like a long and deep bird’s
nest, and set between four or five posts to keep the
receptacle and its contents off the ground. They fulfill
their function of food conservation with only
moderate success, since one rarely approaches one of
these caches without seeing a squirrel run out from a
hole which it has wormed through the brush walls.
Acorns, however, are plentiful in most parts of California
and before the American introduced hogs they
were superabundant, so that the Indians could afford
to share part of their crop with these unbidden visitors
and still have enough left for their own needs.

Acorns contain more or less tannin. The Indian
women leached this out with hot water after the nuts
had been shelled and pounded with a pestle in a stone
mortar. The latter usually was nothing more than a
hole in the surface of some convenient outcrop of
granite. Frequently a number of these mortar holes
were assembled in one spot; these were roofed over
with branches, and in the shade of such an arbor the
Indian women were wont to gather for hours at a time
to wield the heavy pestle and meanwhile indulge in the
gossip of which they were not less fond than their
Caucasian sisters. After the acorns were pulverized,
the meal was sifted and then cooked in baskets into a
thin mush or gruel—the famous "acorn soup" which
was the staff of life to most of the California Indians.
As pottery and iron vessels were unknown, cooking
had of necessity to be done in water-tight baskets. A
basket cannot of course be set over a fire, so the
Indian woman had perforce to bring the fire into her
food, as it were. This she did by heating stones about
the size of her fist, picking these up with a pair of
sticks, and dropping them into the liquid, to which
they communicated their heat until the mass boiled,
The stones were then removed and the gruel was ready
for consumption.

At least fifty to a hundred other varieties of food
plants were utilized. Among the more important of
these were buckeyes, which contain a narcotic poison
that is removable by leaching like the tannin in the
acorn; chia, a variety of sage the seeds of which can be

PLATE IV
Francisco, a Yosemite Indian, in dance costume. The crown is
of magpie feathers, the headband of yellow-hammer
feathers, and the white ropes about the body
chiefly of eagle down. The kilt is a wild
cat skin with bead trimmings
Photo by J. T. Boysen
[Editor’s note:
Francisco Georgely was Northern Yokuts from Chowchilla.
—DEA]

most palatably prepared; and brodiaeas, often called
wild onions or lilies, whose bulbs were dug up by
means of sharp sticks.

THE BOW: HUNTING AND WAR

The Miwok bow was from three to four feet long
and had its back heavily covered with a layer of sinews
to give added toughness and elasticity. It was a
rather narrow weapon, and the sinew was thickened
at the ends and then curled back on itself in a characteristic
shape. Such at least was the bow used in
warfare and for hunting large game. For rabbits,
gophers, and birds, which can be approached closely,
a ruder weapon without the sinew backing sufficed.
For such purposes, too, the arrow was often a mere
shaft, whereas the real hunting and war bow shot
arrows which were foreshafted and tipped with delicate
points of flint or obsidian. The latter material, a
blackish, volcanic glass, the Miwok obtained by trade
from the Mono Indians.

With all its inferiority to firearms, the bow is a
powerful instrument within its effective range. A
good weapon speeds an arrow with an initial velocity
of 120 feet per second. It has definite killing power up
to fifty yards, and at double that distance can easily
inflict wounds that subsequently prove fatal. It tears
the tissues more than a modern bullet, and frequently
produces internal hemorrhages from which the victim
bleeds to death, or which so weaken game that
it can be followed up and overtaken. The longest
attested flight for an arrow is more than a quarter of a
mile, but this record was made with a composite
Turkish bow and especial long range arrows. The
Indians never attempted shooting over such distances.
They depended rather on knowing the habits of deer
and elk and creeping up on them. A favorite device
was for the hunter to cover himself with a deer hide
and set on his head a stuffed deer’s head. In this way
he attracted the curiosity of his quarry without alarming
it, and was often able to approach very close to it.

When the Miwok fought, which was not very often, it
most frequently took on the form of a feud for revenge.
They usually shot at each other at fairly long range;
enough, at any rate, to make possible the dodging of
arrows. Each line of warriors therefore capered and
danced about to render it difficult for their opponents
to take aim, and jerked forward and sidewise as they
saw arrows coming. As might be expected, casualties
were rather light. It was only when one party could
ambush another, or pounce on a settlement asleep just
before daybreak, that fatalities would run high.

HABITATIONS

The houses of the Yosemite and other Miwok
Indians were rude affairs, built, according to location
and abundance of materials, either of thatch, slabs of
bark, or with a covering of earth. In Yosemite itself
the cedar-bark house predominated. This was a conical
lean-to with the slabs laid on several deep, and
while not entirely wind-proof it afforded reasonable
shelter. Most of the huts were small, probably not
over ten or twelve feet in diameter. One or two of
them may still be seen at the time of this writing,
though they present rather a sorry appearance of
gunnysacks, worn-out quilts, and pieces of sawn
lumber mixed in with the bark slabs.

In the lower foothills, the native house was more
frequently of the wigwam type, thatched with grass,
rushes, or brush; and in parts of the San Joaquin
Valley the earth lodge was typical. This was more
or less excavated and covered with a heavy layer of
earth laid on a roof of poles and brush supported by
stout timbers. The Miwok used the earth lodge mainly
for their dance- and sweat-houses. The former
were large affairs up to forty or more feet in diameter.
The latter were much smaller edifices in which the men
daily sweated themselves for their health and physical
comfort. The Yosemite Indians were about at the
edge of the habit of building earth-covered dance
houses. The more northerly Miwok and the tribes
beyond used them regularly in every village of any
consequence, whereas the Yokuts, to the south of
Yosemite, did not erect earth lodges.

THE NAME YOSEMITE

The word "Yosemite" means Grizzly Bear in the
Miwok language. Its more exact form is "üzümati"
or"ühümati." The name became definitely attached
to the Valley, and to the band of Indians that made it
their headquarters, from the time of their first contact
with Americans. There are several explanations. One
story has it that an unarmed young Indian fought off
a fierce grizzly bear with only a stick, and that this
exploit led to the adoption of the name as a sort of
heraldic crest by his group. Somehow this legend
gives the impression of white man’s imagination; it
does not have the true ring of Indian tradition.
Another account is that Tenaya (who was the chief of
the Yosemite band at the time of the discovery and
whose name is perpetuated in that of the canyon
leading into the Valley) and his people lived in a
country infested with bears. In addition, the band
was reputed to consist of unusually fierce warriors.
Therefore the sobriquet "Grizzlies" was bestowed
upon them by the neighboring tribes. This story
also does not seem wholly in accord with known
principles of Indian nomenclature; although Dr. C.
Hart Merriam says that the inhabitants of Hokokwila,
the native village where the Sentinel Hotel now stands,
were called "Yohamite," that is, "Ühümati" or
Grizzly Bear. The true explanation of the name of
the Valley is probably to be found in a peculiar social
institution which the Yosemite Indians shared with
the other Miwok.

This entire nation is everywhere divided into two
groups or "moieties" or halves, as we might call them,
which intermarry. The first social law of these
Indians is that a man must always take to wife a
woman from the other moiety. The children follow
the father, and whether boys or girls are restricted
in their choice of wife or husband to the second
moiety, that of their mother. In this way the lineage
is carried on uninterruptedly generation after
generation.

These two intermarrying halves of the Miwok
nation have the elements land and water as their
designations or totems, and are known as Tunuka and
Kikua. The division is made more picturesque by
assigning every known species of animal and plant to
one or the other division. Thus the bear and most
land animals and birds belong to the land side. Fishes,
water animals, and plants and a few exceptional ones
from the land—especially the deer and coyote—are
associated with water. In some parts of the Miwok
country the people therefore speak of the "Blue Jay"
and "Bullfrog" instead of the land and water divisions.
In the Yosemite region it was customary to denominate
the land side "Grizzly Bears" and the water side
"Coyotes." Furthermore, within Yosemite Valley, all
the villages on the north side of the Merced River were
supposed to belong to the Grizzly Bear division, and
those on the south the Coyote. It seems more than
probable that this local name of one of these two sides
or divisions came to be applied, through some misunderstanding
on the part of the whites, to all the
Indians of the valley, and then to the valley itself.

VILLAGES IN YOSEMITE

The points on the floor of Yosemite at which the
Indians at one time or another lived or camped are
numerous. Dr. C. Hart Merriam, the greatest living
authority on these people, enumerates about forty
such spots and supplies the information which he
obtained about them and verified from the Indians.
The principal sites are, in order down stream on the
north side of the Merced and proceeding up stream
again on the south side: Wiskala, at the foot of Royal
Arches; Yowachki, near the mouth of Indian Canyon
(this site is still occupied by a few families); Awani
and Kumini, near Yosemite Falls, the former being the
more important, in fact recognized as the largest and
most permanent settlement in the Valley in aboriginal
days; Hakaya, near the Three Brothers; Kisi and
Chuchakala, opposite the last, on the south side of the
river; Loya, at Sentinel Rock; Hokokwila, where the
Sentinel Hotel now stands; Tuyuyuyu, near the
Le Conte Memorial Lodge; and Omato, between Camp
Curry and the Happy Isles.

It should be said, however, that these villages were
preëminently summer encampments. Now and then
a few families with an unusually favorable stock of
supplies hoarded up, might remain in the valley from
autumn to spring, but the majority of the inhabitants
annually retreated to the canyon of the Merced River
below El Portal in order to avoid the heavy snows
of the 4000-foot altitude of Yosemite. Down below
they waited, no doubt impatiently, for spring to come
and permit them to resume occupation of the most
favored of their hunting and food-gathering grounds.
It may be added that the Indians, as their legends
clearly indicate, were pretty fully aware of the extraordinary
scenic features of the Valley, and derived
much satisfaction from them; although with their
native stolidity they no doubt expressed themselves
less extravagantly than is the Caucasian habit.

The number of the band at the time of discovery is
not accurately known, but may be estimated to have
been in the vicinity of two hundred and fifty souls.

ENCOUNTERS WITH THE AMERICANS: TENAYA

It was their raids on miners, prospectors, and
scattered storekeepers, that in 1851 led to the formation
of a little volunteer army known as Savage’s
Mariposa Battalion. This company went up into
the as yet unpenetrated mountains in pursuit of the
Yosemite "Grizzlies" and to their overwhelming
astonishment burst into the hitherto undiscovered
valley. In the fighting that followed, the Indians
were defeated, and part of them, including the Chief
Tenaya, captured. The prisoners were taken to the
San Joaquin Valley and put on a reservation. Here
they kept the peace, but were in great distress of mind
on account of their deprivation of the natural foods
to which they were accustomed in their own haunts,
as well as owing to their enforced contiguity to alien
or hostile tribes. Tenaya pleaded to be let off. He
was finally released, returned to Yosemite, and within
four years was followed by all the surviving members
of the band. The old chief did not long survive: he
was killed by the Monos. He was not only a brave
warrior but an unusual personality, who maintained
his authority over his people by his native influence
and by the respect which he commanded rather than
by any legal position.

MARRIAGE

The Miwok social customs were numerous, and
many of them strangely different from our own.
The curious system of intermarrying divisions brought
it about that a person always knew automatically to
which moiety any given blood relative belonged. His
father, his father’s father, his brothers and sisters, his
children (if he were a man), his son’s children, and his
uncles and aunts on the father’s side, were always of
his own "side." His mother, her father, his wife, his
father-in-law, his daughter-in law, and his daughter’s
children, inevitably belonged to the opposite division.
His mother’s mother, however, was always on his
own side of the line-up. A woman differed from a
man in that her children always belonged to the
opposite division. Cousins were divided between
the two sides according to whether the connection
between them was through the male or the female
line.

The dual totemic division was reflected in the
personal names also. Any man, woman, or child, if
his or her name referred to coyote or deer or beaver
or otter or crane or salmon or salamander, or even
indirectly alluded to these animals, was thereby
designated as forming part of the water division. On
the other hand, if his name had any reference to bear
or wildcat or squirrel or raccoon or raven or a host of
other animals he was a "landsman."

A curious custom was that while in general marriage
with any blood relative, even of the seventh degree,
was absolutely prohibited, an exception was made in
favor of certain first cousins. Such cousins were in
fact more or less expected to marry, if there was no
satisfactory reason to the contrary. Which cousins
were available for marriage, depended on the dual
division principle. A man could never marry his
father’s brother’s daughter, because the two brothers,
and therefore their children, would belong to the same
division. Cousins sprung from two sisters were also,
ineligible, because, even though women did not transmit
descent to their children, sisters were forced to
mate with husbands of the opposite moiety; consequently
their offspring would also be of the same descent
and ineligible to one another. The daughter of
one’s mother’s brother, however, was looked upon as
one’s natural spouse. A simple calculation will show
that such a cousin must always be of the opposite,
division from oneself.

How this curious plan of relationships, marriages,
and descent originated is unknown. The Miwoks
themselves can give no explanation but take for

PLATE V
Kalapine, an old Yosemite medicine woman, making a coiled
basket. The process of manufacture, which is one of sewing,
can be seen. Her hair is cut short in mourning
Photo by J. T. Boysen

granted that the system has existed since the beginning
of the world, and look upon us as very strange
beings for not observing the same customs. It is
probable that the psychological root of the observances
was a desire to keep the blood mixed; although
if such were the case, the original purpose
was certainly defeated by the system of first-cousin
marriages.

The newly wedded man was expected to show
deference to his wife’s parents by avoiding them as
much as possible, especially the mother-in-law; and
his wife behaved similarly toward his mother and father.
The young people did not look their elders in the face
or speak to them. If communication was necessary,
the husband would address himself to his wife, and she
in turn would repeat the statement to her mother, who
would make the necessary answer by the same route,
even though all three might be sitting in the same
lodge. For a young man to do otherwise, would be
the grossest breach of decorum, and the old lady would
no doubt complain to her friends that her daughter
seemed to have married a man lacking in all propriety
and affection. This is another custom which the
Indians assume is self-evident, and when asked for a
reason they can give none except that they would be
mortally ashamed to behave otherwise.

BABIES

When a child is born, both father and mother have
certain taboes imposed upon them. The man may
not hunt nor do other than the necessary work, and
both parent’s sit as quietly as possible about the house.
After this follows a longer period during which they
are free to resume normal occupations but must not
eat certain kinds of food under penalty of injury to
the health of the child.

The Miwok baby is put into a frame or "carrier," a
sort of flat, hooded basket woven of slender sticks.
In this it spends the greater part of the first twelve
months of its life, and is easily carried about by the
mother. The baby carrier has the further advantage
of seeming to keep the infant still and contented. It is
a notorious fact that Indian babies cry much less than
white ones, and the native mothers declare that if they
remove the children from their carriers the kicking
about of legs and arms soon induces restlessness, discontent,
and bawling. The woven hood of each of
these tiny cradles is ornamented with a little pattern
which differs according to sex. Zigzags or diagonal
stripes show that the inmate is a boy, whereas a girl is
indicated by a pattern of diamonds.

DEATH AND MOURNING

When a Miwok died, mourning and wailing were
intense. His name must under no circumstances be
spoken. To do so might invoke the ghost, and would
in any event be considered as the deepest of all possible
insults by his relatives. A widow cropped or burned
her hair very short, smeared melted pitch over it, and
also covered her face and breast with the same material.
During the whole period of mourning she was
not allowed to wash these parts of her body. After
a few months of pitch and dirt, her appearance was
a startling one: sufficiently forbidding, no doubt, to
deter any prospective suitor. For the whole of the
first year of her widowhood, also, she kept silence, or
spoke only in low whispers to a female relative when
the occasion was imperative.

Once a year, in each region of the Miwok country,
usually in late summer or autumn, a great commemorative
mourning ceremony for the dead was held,
which lasted amid wailing and singing for several
nights. Toward daybreak on the last morning
immense accumulations of food and property were
thrown into the fire by the mourners. Those of the
deceased who had been of special rank, or particularly
beloved by their survivors, were represented by rude
effigies which were also consumed in the blaze. After
this the mourners of the land side were ceremonially
washed by the water people, and vice versa, to signify
their cleansing from the period of grief and from the
restrictions which they had been under. For the
widow it was also a much needed literal cleansing.

MEDICINE-MEN

When an Indian became sick, a shaman or medicine
man was called in. This individual had acquired his
power from spirits. He was believed to possess the
power of clairvoyance. After dancing, singing, manipulating
the patient, and other preliminaries, he would
declare that the illness was due to the infraction of
some religious taboo, or that some evil-minded medicine-man,
a witch or wizard, had managed to lodge
some foreign object or noxious little animal in the body
of the sufferer.

He then proceeded to remove the poison by sucking
the part affected, and finally pretended to remove a
little mass of straw, a wisp of hair, a dead grasshopper
or lizard, or something of that sort. The patient and
his relatives of course felt immeasurably relieved, and,
confidence having been regained, nature in most cases
concluded the recovery.

If, however, the medicine-man was unfortunate and
lost several patients, especially if these died in rapid
succession, he paid dearly for his preëminence. The
Indians were so convinced of the complete power of
these shamans, that they gave them entire credit for
every cure that happened. Consequently they were
quite logical when they reasoned that the death of a
patient must be due to the unwillingness or evil
disposition of the practitioner. One or two fatalities
might be pardoned as due to mere incompetence; but
suspicion would be gathering, and after his third or
fourth loss, the medicine-man’s life was worth little.
The relatives of his deceased patients were simply
waiting for an opportunity to ambush and murder
him, and he must be a wary or powerful man indeed
to escape permanently. Even to-day an occasional
murder among the Sierra Nevada tribes can be traced
to a lingering of this old custom.

MYTHS AND ORIGIN BELIEFS

The myths and legends of the Yosemite band rested
on the same ideas as those current among the other
Miwok. From these latter we gather that it was
currently believed by the natives that this earth
was peopled six successive times. The first world was
dominated by a cannibal giant Uwulin who gradually
devoured its inhabitants until little Fly discovered a
tiny vulnerable spot in his heel—like that of Achilles—and
despatched the malefactor. The people of the
second world were not much better off, for they were
stolen away by an immense bird, a sort of Roc, named
Yelelkin, and the remainder were persecuted by ants
until they were driven away. The third world was
peopled by beings who were half human and half
animal, and came to an end with their transformation
into complete animals—a sort of retrograde evolution.
The fourth race was vexed by its chief, Skunk, who
kept for himself all meat, until his people succeeded
in destroying him by strategy. In his death agonies
Skunk upheaved the mountains. This race was also
transformed into animals. As to the fifth world,
tradition is obscure, but the sixth peopling was
accomplished by Coyote. The earth was at this time
covered with water, but Coyote had Frog dive and
bring up a bit of soil from which he created land. He
then caused vegetation to grow up and made human
beings. He and his associates, who up to this time
had been more or less human or even superhuman
in attributes, then became changed into animals like
those which we see to-day.

In the story of the origin of death among mankind,
Coyote also figures. His plan was to have people
covered up for four days and then arise reborn in the
prime of manhood. For a while this arrangement
worked to the satisfaction of everyone. Once, however,
a person died just as Meadow-lark took to himself
a wife. After a day or two, odors of decay began to
arise from the blanket-covered pile and penetrated
to the hut of the honeymoon couple. Meadow-lark
resented having his bliss disturbed in this way, and
proclaimed that a much, better plan would be to burn
up the source of the stench and leave everyone in
peace. His counsel prevailed and the first cremation
took place, which the Miwok have adhered to ever
since; but with it there passed away the habit of
human lives being renewed over and over. Although
they believe this tale, the Miwok seem to bear no
resentment against Meadow-lark.

The greatest hero of Miwok legends is Wekwek, the
Falcon, son of Condor or according to other versions of
Yayil, and grandson of Coyote. Falcon fought and
overcame a destructive giant, Kilak; escaped a fire
that consumed the surface of the world; and underwent
numberless other adventures. More than once
he was killed and restored to life, and at other times he
brought back among the living his father, his sister, or
some friend. The Miwok never tire of telling about
this character, who impersonates all that they conceive
of daring and magic and skill in the days of long ago.

LEGENDS OF YOSEMITE

About Yosemite Valley proper there are a number of
Indian stories which have repeatedly been recorded
with but little variation, so that they may be considered
authentic. The favorite one tells of a woman
named Tiseyak who lived far down the Merced River,
in or near the plains. Having quarreled with her
husband, she ran away eastward, creating the course of
the present stream and causing oak trees and other
food-bearing plants to spring up along her route. In
Yosemite Valley her husband overtook her and beat
her soundly. In the scuffle, the hooded bady-cradle
which she was carrying was thrown across to the north
wall of the canyon, where the bent hood can still be
seen in the Royal Arches. A globular basket which
she had brought with her, landed bottom upward and
became Basket or North Dome. The husband, who
is known in the story as Nangas, "her husband,"
turned into North Dome or Washington Tower,
whereas Tiseyak herself became Half Dome, the dark
streaks on the sheer cliff of this great peak being the
tears which her pain and humiliation had caused to
stream down her face. The several versions vary in
details, but in substance the tale is told by all the
Yosemite Miwok as here outlined. It must be
remembered that oral tradition can never be
absolutely consistent in the mouths of separate
individuals.

El Capitan, it is said, was originally a small rock.
Once, long ago, a she-bear went to sleep on top with
her two cubs. When they awoke in the morning, the
rock had grown into the present tremendous cliff.
Neither they nor the people of the village below knew
how to rescue the unfortunates; until at last the Inch
or Measuring Worm succeeded in humping his way up
the cliff. By this time, however, the poor bear and
her cubs had starved to death, and he could do no
more than bring down their bones for cremation by
their mourning relatives.

Measuring Worm was now possessed by the spirit
of adventure. He reclimbed El Capitan, stretched
himself clear across to the opposite side of the Valley,
and drew himself over. Then he recrossed. This
sport, however, must have weakened the walls of the
canyon, for it was not long before they began to cave
and the inhabitants were obliged to flee down the
river in order to save themselves. The Indians say
that before this catastrophe the Valley was even
deeper than it is at present.

Waterfalls are dreaded by the Miwok, and both
Yosemite and Bridalveil Falls are believed to be inhabited
by spirits, those in the former being known
as Poloti, and in the latter as Pohono. They cause
gusts of wind which are likely to whirl into the falls
people who venture too close. Once the Poloti
captured a girl. She had gone to Yosemite Creek
from Awani or a neighboring camp to bring back
a basket of water. When she dipped up, it was
full of snakes. These the spirits had caused to
enter the vessel so that she might abandon her accustomed
spot and move farther upstream. Each
time she dipped her basket, the unfortunate girl
found more vermin in it, and so gradually she went
higher and higher up until she reached the pool at
the foot of the falls, when a sudden violent gust blew
her in.

It was with such tales as this that the Yosemite
Indians used to beguile the long winter evenings while
sitting about the fire.